Reporter: You are going to meet with first responders today, but you pardoned hundreds of people who assaulted first responders. Trump: No, I pardoned people who were assaulted themselves… by our government. I didn’t assault. They didn’t assault. They were assaulted. What I did… pic.twitter.com/LbzrbFM6rb — Acyn (@Acyn) February 10, 2025 Reporter: You are going to meet with first responders today, but you pardoned hundreds of people who assaulted first responders. Trump: No, I pardoned people who were assaulted themselves… by our government. I didn’t assault. They didn’t assault. They were assaulted. What I did was a great thing for humanity. He apparently now believes that the people who broke into the Capitol should have been allowed to march in interrupt the joint session, stop the count, hang Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi. He condemned the violence the next day under some duress. And he’s defended them as political prisoners treated unfairly by the legal system.
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Trump: We’re making our country larger, we’re making our country stronger. And in the case of Canada—if this should happen—I don’t know how they can do it without us. Because without the U.S., Canada really doesn’t have a country. They do almost all of their business with us,… pic.twitter.com/0RN4lyJ5RV — Acyn (@Acyn) February 10, 2025 Trump: We’re making our country larger, we’re making our country stronger. And in the case of Canada—if this should happen—I don’t know how they can do it without us. Because without the U.S., Canada really doesn’t have a country. They do almost all of their business with us, and if we say we want our cars to be made in Detroit, with a stroke of a pen, I can make that happen. And other things, in addition to that, would not allow Canada to be a viable country. With a stroke of a pen he can make all our cars in Detroit? He can make Canada cease to be a viable country? Is he now consciously aping Putin? I’m a little bit concerned that I’m not seeing more commentary about this change in his personality.
He’s licking his chops: On her first day as attorney general, Pam Bondi launched an investigation of the Biden-era investigators of President Donald Trump that will report its progress directly to the White House. It’s a crossing the Rubicon moment for DOJ independence that is compounded by the fact that Trump has made Stephen Miller the point person on the administration-wide effort to exact retribution for the criminal investigations of the president. […] Trump’s executive order also instructed his director of national intelligence to launch a similar investigation of the investigators and report back to his deputy chief of staff for policy, which again is Miller. Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination as DNC is still pending in the Senate, but she is expected to be confirmed after narrowly winning the Senate Intelligence Committee approval this week. “The fact that the DOJ is reporting to someone in the White House itself crosses a rubicon,” noted Gillers, who did not have independent knowledge of Miller’s apparent role. “That’s a major shift.
JV Last answers a question I’ve wondered about recently. A year ago my neighborhood was inundated with Teslas. California is the biggest US market for EVs and they were everywhere on the westside of LA. It was downright weird. Suddenly, there aren’t so many. There are other EVs but not so many Teslas. Apparently, Tesla’s popularity is in the toilet all over the world. Why? Elon Musk has alienated the very market that was in love with his cars: Elon Musk has made himself very popular with men who drive gas-powered pickup trucks and have no intention of ever buying an EV. Meanwhile, he has made himself toxic to the kinds of people most likely to buy EVs in the coming years. Let’s start with the trade pub Inside EVs, reporting on post-election Tesla sales: Some numbers: This isn’t rocket science: In late 2024 Elon Musk inserted himself into global politics. He was gleefully antagonistic. He played footsie with Nazis. He made it known that he positively hates the woke, educated, “elites.” I have no idea what it will take to seriously put a dent in his fortune.
As usual, AOC says it plainly and clearly. But the party does appear to be coalescing into something of a plan even if the leadership is using language more suited to 2015 than 2025: Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) in a letter to colleagues Monday warned of the possibility of a “Trump shutdown” and reminded fellow senators that Democrats have the power to make or break any bill to fund the government past March 14. Democrats in the Senate and House are looking more seriously at the looming funding deadline as an important point of leverage to slow or stop President Trump’s and Elon Musk’s freezing of federal payments, lockout of federal workers and plans to slash government spending by trillions of dollars. Schumer wrote that Democrats want to avoid a shutdown and argued that if Congress fails to reach a government funding deal by the March 14 deadline, the fault would lie with Trump. “Legislation in the Senate requires 60 votes and Senate Democrats will use our votes to help steady the ship for the American people in these turbulent times.
Trump takes what he wants now Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was caught on a hot mic the other day giving his assessment of Trump’s threat to turn Canada into the 51st state. I don’t think Trudeau is given to wild conspiracy theories. This is what he said: “I suggest that not only does the Trump administration know how many critical minerals we have but that may be even why they keep talking about absorbing us and making us the 51st state,” he said. “They’re very aware of our resources, of what we have, and they very much want to be able to benefit from those. But Mr. Trump has it in mind that one of the easiest ways of doing that is absorbing our country. And it is a real thing.” Trump was asked about it by Fox news’ Bret Baier in his Super Bowl interview and he assured him that he is serious about the 51st state thing but that it’s because of Canada’s trade deficit which he’s inanely convinced himself is a “subsidy” (once more demonstrating that he has no idea how trade actually works.) That’s just his excuse — which he may believe as well — but there’s more to it.
The DOGE has found something really great for Donald Trump Hard at work this weekend Donald Trump was on Air force One en route from Mar-a-Lago to the Super Bowl Trump dropped another wild, radical idea. He told reporters that DOGE had found “irregularities” in US Treasuries which means there may be do obligation to pay them. He said, “maybe we have less debt than we thought.” Are the Wall St boys ok with Trump saying that the teenage DOGEboys have found some “irregularities” in US treasuries and the US may not have to pay them. Maybe we have less debt than we thought,” he said. That’s completely daft but it’s predictable that Trump’s desperately looking for a shortcut to cutting the deficit.
Come on Dems, get this done. When you think about what the Republicans are doing down in North Carolina and, really, all over the country there is no excuse not to do it. They would do it to you in a heartbeat: New York Democrats are poised to delay until November the special election to fill Rep. Elise Stefanik’s House seat — a move that would deny House Republicans a crucial vote in the closely divided chamber. State lawmakers on Friday introduced a bill that would allow Gov. Kathy Hochul to schedule special elections under some circumstances until the November general election. The Democratic-led Legislature is expected to approve the bill Monday, touching off a bitter feud with New York Republicans in a hyper partisan era. President Donald Trump tapped Stefanik to become the United Nations ambassador. Top Albany Democrats are framing the proposal — which follows consultations between state lawmakers and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ office — as a way to save money for local governments.
Not monarchists Arshad Hasan from Democracy for America’s Campaign Academy (back in the day) told us straight away: You are not normal. Normal people do not spend their weekends learning to run political campaigns. Let me extend that: If you read this blog, you are not normal either. Since these are abnormal times, you are in the right place. The lesson Arshad meant to convey was not to talk to normal people like you do to other political geeks. They don’t get worked up by things like, say, a constitutional crisis. Too removed from work, kids and shopping. Not even the collapse of the republic breaks through until tanks are blocking the streets or social security checks stop coming. But for us, the crisis is here. In the course of moving fast and breaking things, Musk-Trump is headed to court(s) over its actions since January 20. At issue is whether the U.S. Supreme Court will sign off on executive overreach (so John Roberts can avoid being ignored) or defy King Donald and actually be ignored. “We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis right now,” Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at UC Berkeley tells The New York Times.
It’s come to this Google tried to sanewash its map changes: In a statement posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, Google said it would be complying with the name change as part of a long-standing practice of adhering to official government names. The move follows President Donald Trump’s executive order to rename the body of water and the federal Board on Geographic Names formally changing it Monday. “We have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources,” Google said. But Google made deletions to its Calendar application as well. Among others, Black History Month is gone: “Some years ago, the Calendar team started manually adding a broader set of cultural moments in a wide number of countries around the world,” the spokesperson said in an email. “We got feedback that some other events and countries were missing — and maintaining hundreds of moments manually and consistently globally wasn’t scalable or sustainable,” the spokesperson added.